Implantable pacemakers and cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) are available for delivering electrical stimulation therapies to a patient's heart, such as bradycardia pacing, cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT), anti-tachycardia pacing and cardioversion/defibrillation shocks.
Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is an example of a pacing therapy that includes delivering pacing pulses in a heart chamber at a predetermined time interval after a sensed or paced event in another heart chamber. CRT is a treatment for heart failure patients in which one or more heart chambers are electrically paced to restore or improve heart chamber synchrony. Improved heart chamber synchrony is expected to alleviate symptoms of heart failure.
Achieving a positive clinical benefit from CRT, however, may be dependent on several therapy control parameters, such as the timing intervals used to control pacing pulse delivery, e.g. an atrio-ventricular (AV) interval and/or an inter-ventricular (VV) interval. The AV interval controls the timing of ventricular pacing pulses relative to an atrial depolarization. The VV interval controls the timing of a pacing pulse in one ventricle relative to a sensed R-wave in the other ventricle. Pacing may be delivered in the right ventricle (RV) and/or the left ventricle (LV) to restore ventricular synchrony.
Medical device technology advancement has led toward smaller and smaller implantable devices. Recently, leadless intracardiac pacemakers have been introduced which can be implanted directly in a heart chamber. Elimination of transvenous, intracardiac leads has several advantages. For example, complications due to infection associated with a lead extending from a subcutaneous pacemaker pocket transvenously into the heart can be eliminated. Other complications such as “twiddler's syndrome”, lead fracture or poor connection of the lead to the pacemaker are eliminated in the use of a leadless, intracardiac pacemaker. New challenges arise, however, in controlling an intracardiac pacemaker to deliver pacing pulses in synchrony with paced or sensed events occurring in other heart chambers, e.g. for delivering effective CRT.